Britain’s Daring Defense Review

These are heady times for British foreign and defense policies. In late November 2015, amid difficult membership renegotiations with the EU and a debate about bombing the self-styled Islamic State in Syria, the UK published a new security and defense review. The document, which combines a national security strategy with a strategic defense and security review, is significant for a number of reasons.

The previous review, carried out in 2010, was inspired more by fiscal austerity than by strategic concerns: the economic crisis had caused the government budget deficit to quadruple between 2007 and 2009. The defense budget was slashed by 8 percent in the five years after 2010, and the British Army was reduced to its lowest manpower level since the Napoleonic era. Because of the focus on cost cutting, the 2010 document had a cobbled-together feel and lacked strategic coherence. As one British official quipped to this author, “We identified terrorism and cybersecurity as our main priorities and decided to buy two aircraft carriers.”

The 2015 version is much more coherent and ambitious. For example, the 2010 review considered a large-scale military attack by other states to be a “low probability.” Because of intervening Russian aggression in Eastern Europe (alongside other crises and the rise of the Islamic State), Britain should now aim to simultaneously deter state-based threats and tackle nonstate challenges.

Moreover, despite the urgent security crises in Europe’s immediate neighborhood (Libya, Syria, Ukraine), Britain should keep a global outlook. A desire to work more closely with Asia-Pacific partners such as Australia and Japan is spelled out more forthrightly than before. In addition, the 2015 review prefers robust rapid responses to crises over longer-term Afghanistan-style deployments.

This fuller-spectrum strategic approach will need resources, and there had been fears before the review that the UK would continue to cut its defense budget. However, London intends to increase defense expenditure by around 5 percent by 2020 and promises to meet the NATO target of spending at least 2 percent of GDP on defense over the same period. (According to NATO estimates, only three other European members—Estonia, Greece, and Poland—met this target in 2015.) Furthermore, Britain will invest £178 billion ($262 billion) in military equipment over the coming decade, an increase of £12 billion ($18 billion).

That money will be spent both on preplanned projects, such as maintaining the Trident nuclear deterrent and developing two new aircraft carriers, and on ways to fill some capability gaps that resulted from the austerity-driven 2010 review. Among other things, the air force will acquire maritime patrol aircraft to monitor Russian submarine incursions, together with stealthy F-35 fighter jets; the army will be able to deploy at very short notice two 5,000-strong strike brigades equipped with new armored vehicles; and the navy will receive new combat ships. Plus almost 2,000 more spies will be recruited to track terrorists and cyberthreats.

This renewed level of British military ambition is important for NATO, as the UK is the largest European defense spender in the Atlantic alliance. Following recent grumbling by some NATO allies, especially Washington, about Britain’s declining military willingness and ability, the main political message that emerges from the new defense review is that Britain is back as a serious military power. Whether this proves to be the case in practice remains to be seen, as unforeseen events may expose glaring capability gaps or budgetary difficulties may hamper some equipment projects. But the intention is clear.

Within the European context, it will be interesting to compare the British document with two other ongoing review processes that will conclude later in 2016: the German defense white book and the EU global strategy, which will set out priorities for EU foreign, security, and defense policies. It is uncertain that those two documents will share similar levels of military ambition to the British review.

Even so, the UK review underlines the value of cooperating closely with European allies, including through the EU as well as NATO, highlighting France and Germany in particular. This is sensible, not only because European cooperation is vital for managing the myriad of cross-border security challenges the UK faces in and around Europe, but also to bolster British international influence. A pre-review UK defense ministry study, entitled “Future Operating Environment 2035,” noted that Britain’s global clout could decline within twenty years due to the growing number of influential powers such as Brazil, China, and India.

However, the shadow of a British exit from the EU hangs over British international ambitions. In the worst-case Brexit scenario, the UK would probably remain a significant military power (depending on the economic fallout), but it would certainly become a much-diminished diplomatic player. Concomitantly, Brexit would greatly damage the EU’s already-struggling defense policy and, by extension, its foreign policies.

Worse, Brexit could also further harm the credibility of the whole EU project, coming on top of coping with eurozone woes, the refugee crisis, terrorist attacks, the rise of nationalist politicians, a revisionist Russia, and Middle Eastern disorder. A more unstable EU is not in Britain’s strategic interest. As the defense review says, “a secure and prosperous Europe is essential for a secure and prosperous UK.”

The British are widely admired for their irony. But it would be painfully ironic for Britain to make itself less geopolitically relevant at the very moment it wants to become more strategically ambitious.

Daniel Keohane is a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zürich.

"In the worst-case Brexit scenario, the UK would probably remain a significant military power (depending on the economic fallout), but it would certainly become a much-diminished diplomatic player. "
Really? Perhaps the author is unaware that the UK is one of only 5 nations with a permanent seat on the UN Security Council?
Fact, there are only 3 nations in the world that can boast having a Permanent Seat at the UN, being a recognised nuclear power and having a Top 5 economy - these being the USA, China and...the UK.
As such, the UK will have no problems maintaining serious diploamtic clout on the world stage without its EU membership. The issue for the UK is if it can stay toghether as a breakaway Scotland is a real threat, and if this were to occur, then the rest of UK would then struggle to keep hold of its 'great power assets'.

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RT Colorado

January 05, 201611:56 am

It's interesting to read about a resurgence of British long term defense planning. NATO has fallen upon hard times in the past five years, but Russian 'adventures' seem to have awaken the slumbering mess, at least enough to get several major NATO partners to loosen the purse strings. A weakened America combined with a more aggressive Russia has alerted Northern Europe to the need to be able to defend themselves long enough for the less than enthusiastic Americans to come to the rescue.

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Christian Schulz

January 06, 20168:13 am

Don't expect anything from the german Weissbuch. The political structure of the german ministeries does not support cooperation between the Ministery of Defense and the Ministery for Foreign Affairs. The strict "depatmental principle" already creates deep rifts between ministeries (just for "territorial" reasons), but the practise of putting the MfA into the hands of the smaller coalition partner pretty much guarantees fractured policies emanating from the Chancellery, the MoD and the MfA. If you add ideological differences - which exist between Steinmeier's disregard of the military and his affinity towards Ostpolitik and von der Leyen's instinct for power - you tet a Ministery for Foreign Affairs which will not consider itself bound to what the Weissbuch contains. The same was true for the 2006 Weissbuch and especially for the 2011 DPG already and the atmospheric troubles between Steinmeier and von der Leyen (to put it mildly) after the latter "thought loudly" via the press about military options within NATO to reassure the CEE states (Steinmeier was said to have been more furious than ever before) show the potential for conflict between MfA and MoD. That means the Weissbuch will not be able to generate any political pull worth mentioning, as other ministeries will consider it a document of the MoD only and not binding for their own houses. And the Chancellor cannot force any ministery to follow the Weissbuch. Our constitution does not give her that piower.

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